From Car Troubles to Housing Setbacks, Kent Reflects on the Small Choices that Keep Him Moving Toward Stability
Through my door one morning, I hear Zed say my full name, and only that, out loud. He then immediately starts snickering. Just my name, nothing else. Pure comedy to Zed. Perhaps this should worry me, but instead, I laugh. And I want in on the joke.
But shucks, y’all—the joke is at my expense: While I’m staying in the hotel waiting for a final word on the new housing, Zed ghosts me. Zed may have been open from the outset that the person he located on Craigslist to help him build his funds to get out of his current housing in a month might be someone he would be open to ghosting—or mummying (the latter a variation that includes placing your belongings with you in your sarcophagus).
Part of my experience with poverty is encountering people who operate in ethical gray areas. When you’re trying so hard to save money, you don’t vet them as thoroughly as you would when you feel everyone wants you as a tenant. You end up becoming prey. And no one wants that but the predator.
To sum up, handshakes don’t prevent headaches. Next time I’ll ask for the basics in writing: move-in date, refund rules, what happens if plans change, and who’s on the lease. Nothing fancy. Just enough ink to keep mystery from moving into my room.
Improvising Forward: The Full-Bodied Jumpstart
I wish I could say I handled everything with grace, floating like a swan through a thunderstorm. In reality, grace looks like me slamming my shoulders into the driver’s seat.
A remarkable thing has been happening with my car. A few months back, my car needed a new starter. I used a refurbished part for the fix to save a couple of hundred bucks; it was still over $700 because the labor was complicated (axle removal). My sister put it on her credit card and got me back behind the wheel.
However, I continued to have issues as soon as I started driving it. A problematic starter can be “knocked” into allowing it to start again. Incredibly, following this logic, I recently tried slamming myself back against the driver’s seat a couple of times; suddenly, the car growled and then purred without a hitch.
Maybe every third time I start the car, I have to do this. I’ve now done it dozens of times over more than a month. It has never failed to start the car. It has also never failed to alarm those nearby, who must think they’re watching someone attempt to give themselves whiplash in the bowling alley parking lot.
The full-bodied jumpstart is both a ridiculous solution and an honest metaphor for recovery: sometimes you improvise something undignified to keep moving. It isn’t a plan but a bridge. Bridges are key—just ask military scientists or civil engineers.
When Wanting to Help Hurts: Needs of Like-Situated Souls
I can’t support homeless people as much as I want to. I see Morris, a guy from the shelter who had caused possibly lasting damage with spice, walking while I am far out from downtown. He’s walking in a very odd place. It’s rainy. It’s really bizarre to see him walking out there. Should I stop my car and let him in? Yes, I should. Am I going to? Not this time. I am someone who stops for hitchhikers. But I can’t be in that mind-frame right now.
I drive past him with a gut full of guilt and windshield wipers working overtime. I tell myself to breathe. It’s the classic meditation directive. I’m calm. I can help when I can help.
My old roommate from the shelter, John, also contacts me. He wants “a favor until Friday or Monday.” I am unsure if I’ll write him back. For obvious reasons, I don’t want to. He writes me back the following day, “Don’t ignore me, Kent.” I really needed a “Please” there. People can get strangely rude when they’re in need. I can’t handle rudeness right now, especially not related to money, of which I still have a pitiable amount.
It’s tragic how I can’t stay engaged. These are people whose plight I now share more than I might like. To forget that is not just sinful but lacks the most basic compassion. Now, though, I must stay focused and keep turning away from the need. I must save myself. It’s the central rule of water safety, and I am certainly still in deep water.
It keeps hitting me, though. At the dentist, I see an ad about fentanyl addiction and how Narcan is saving lives. As I watch it, it feels distant at first. Then I think, “Wait, why don’t I recognize any of these people?” I should.
At the rehab/shelter, I made friends with a man who played the bass. He said he had five kids. When he left, he went to a hotel and immediately died, the same day, of an overdose. I would look at his picture on the facility’s “Wall of Death.” It was impossible, it seemed. But there was his picture. He was the past. He is the past. He is I, in a way. Yet I walk on.
A Quieter Hope: Survivable Yeses
Boundaries used to sound like mean little fences. Now they feel like guardrails—unsplendid, unpopular, and exactly what keeps you from driving off a cliff. If you’re reading this hoping for a dramatic rescue, I don’t have one to sell you. What I have is a small habit of choosing survivable yeses.
And I am grateful, that’s certain. I’m in a new apartment. But it’s imperfect. The live-in landlord is an immigrant, understandably very stressed. He spends a lot of his time at a casino. The other roommate works the graveyard shift as a security guard at a hospital. It’s dark all day in the apartment. The lighting is on the graveyard theme.
Soon after moving in, I heard back from the 8-acre property in J-Town. I am in. This is a no-brainer. I’m headed for greener environs. I’m headed for a hammock.
The Great Rekindling
Looking back on my time working at the hotel, it’s almost the glory days so far this year. Maybe the most devastating impact of homelessness is social isolation and disregard as someone whose opinion is worthy to gauge related to anything.
I need to socialize with people who live the way I want to live. I must reach up for a hand, for someone to shake it and remind me that I’m not a vacillating victim of circumstance.
This will take work. Increasingly, I understand that what I did not do enough of before this fiasco is move. The forward motion is a signal to the heavens. It says, “I’m ready for what’s next, even if it’s more catastrophe, because I choose life, and I choose to accelerate my greatness purely and integrally with the spirit of the divine.” Or something like that.
It’s work first, though. We are here first to help each other. How do I find my way back into the lives of those who might help me the most? I must rekindle the sparks that once made us enjoy each other, before I became a phantom to them. I do feel like a phantom. However, a phantom is as a phantom does, as Forrest Gump said.
